Being a kid these days can be a lot of fun. Less responsibility, more time to indulge your imagination, and long summer vacations define many childhoods. Of course, many kids have chores and it's not uncommon to find a child working at their family's small business. Yet wind back the clock and things looked much different in the not-so-distant past.
Up through the early stages of industrialization, children often worked in factories or performed backbreaking labor on farms from sunrise to sunset. Still, child labor is mostly a historical phenomenon, right? Perhaps not. In recent weeks, underage children have been found working at fast food restaurants and slaughterhouses. In some cases, young kids have been laboring into the wee hours of the morning. Now, debates have flared up over whether laws restricting child labor should be loosened or tightened.
Child labor is far from a uniquely American challenge. In fact, in many countries and locales, the situation is far more dire. For example, most modern lithium batteries (which are typically what you find in laptops and smartphones) use cobalt, which mostly comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). A recently published book, "Cobalt Red", written by Siddharth Kara, found that not only is child labor common at so-called artisan cobalt mines, but also that working environments were immensely dangerous, with children sometimes buried alive when underground tunnels collapse. Because children can fit into smaller confines, they're often favored for tunnel work.
Some experts estimate that as many as 160 million kids are engaged in child labor, with about 80 million working in hazardous conditions. Roughly 86 million of these laborers work in sub-Saharan Africa. Still, in countries with low unemployment rates like the United States, child labor may increase as companies scour for labor power.
